Fairy Tale Theater II By Howard Gayton

Tuesday, 15th November

Day two: This morning I smudged with sage the second space that we are using to rehearse.

We started with 'Zazen' meditation, kneeling in a circle and
concentrating on our breath. The meditation is a simple pointer to how
we can change the energy of a space with our intention, which is one of
the abilities, and the job, of the performer.

Then we spent the morning working on some images that I wished to
use in the show. We explored how the actors could create a boat using
their bodies, with a fisherman sitting inside, and how this could
transform first into a wave, and then into the Big Fish itself. It was a
combination of ideas that the class had worked on before, and there was
a good feeling of flow and transformation to it as the group went on to
evoke a storm and the threat of a sea–monster.

In the afternoon, we did a warm–up using 'chi kung,' a form of
movement with concentration on the breath. This led naturally into an
improvisation of sounds, movements and characters, and then into me
re–telling the story as the students improvised to act it out. In this
improvisation there was a beautiful image of the boy flying in his
boots, coming down to land in the kingdom of the birds where the other
performers made the trees. He then climbed into a tree to look around,
from where he witnessed the emergence of the Queen of Birds, his
sister. We tried this with the black clothes that I wanted the cast to
wear, adding small bits of costume over the top. The idea was to use
just simple bits of costume to get character across. It worked very
well.

The next exercise was for the students to work out, on their own,
individual re–tellings of the part of the tale where the fisherman
first goes to sea, which they then performed to each other in pairs. The
most interesting of these, in terms of movement and use of voice, were
shown to the whole group. This generated a lot of script. We split the
story up so that each student entered the stage, told a segment of the
tale, and then froze in place. It worked well,
and created some very interesting images as the scene built up. I
think it will be the start of the show.

Some interesting points that came up with this sequence:

The first actress comes on, places a very tiny stool down, and
sits on it. This is a traditional way of telling a story, but soon more
and more storytellers enter, the world expands, and the telling becomes
more physical. It is a great way to start the play, introducing the
audience to the cast and to the way we are going to flow and transform
throughout the show.

I am aware that we are telling the same basic story, that of a
fisherman going to sea and being eaten by a big fish, three times at
the beginning. Though the "triple repetition" motif is common in fairy
tales, this has the potential to be theatrically very boring. We can get
around this problem by varying the styles of storytelling. The
'gradual' way of telling the story mentioned above will be good for the
first sea journey, opening the play. The second time the fisherman
encounters the fish,
we can use cardboard cut–out puppets of a boat and fish; and for
the third sea journey we can use the image of the boat formed by the
cast's bodies, which then transforms into the fish. In this way I hope
to use the triple repetition motif, to give us a lot to play with.

I have been intrigued for a while with the 'power' of sacred
numbers, and I wonder whether this exploration of the triple repetition
motif can give me any further insight into the symbolism of the number
three. The 'power of three' in theater, as I understand it, is that when
you do something the first time (use a particular image, or idea), the
audience sees it, but it has no special meaning. The second time, they
really notice it. The image has been reinforced,
informing the audience that it's part of the symbolic language of
the play. The third time that it's repeated, it is now a motif that can
be changed or subvert for comedic effect, or reinforced to cement
themes of the story. Perhaps the 'power of three' can be applied to
fairy tales as well.

Wednesday, 16th November

There were a lot of complications with the bureaucracy of the
school and theater today, which led to me being a bit 'heated' when
going into the work. So, I moved from the warm–up exercises into a led
improvisation of sound and movement, then transformations into
creatures, patterns, and motifs from the story, in no particular order.
This entailed following a movement or a sound, allowing it to develop to
its apex, then sensing what the next movement or sound would be.
The point was to be open, to listen, observe, and be sensitive. To
accept and to live each part of the improvisation, and to immerse
oneself in it. This shifted the negative energy I had brought into the
class with me, and led to our discovery of a great movement sequence
where static trees suddenly become a flock of birds. It evoked the sound
and motion of birds taking off as a flock when disturbed.

The feel of the show is beginning to develop. There are times
when the 'energy flow' of the piece is static, held in a still image,
and then suddenly it transforms into movement before re–forming into
another image. It brings to mind Prospero's speech in Shakespeare's The Tempest:

"Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air,
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud–capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on . . ."

Theatre, like life, is fleeting. Things take a certain form for a
while, and then the energy in them changes and vibrates at a different
level, and so has different manifestations and appearances. But it is
appearance only; nothing is solid; it's all just energy moving,
changing, playing.

Having run through the first plot sequence, the cast continued on
in the story, improvising movement and text to link all the scenes we
had worked on so far. We now have outlines for the three sea journeys,
and the daughters being eaten by the fish. I then had the cast sit in a
semi–circle, which brought up a discussion on the importance of circles.
Many native cultures sit in circles for councils and ceremonies because
of the equality it brings, allowing everyone to see everyone else. (I'm
thinking here, in particular, of the ceremonies I've been privileged to
attend with Native Americans.)
This is the reason I begin and end each day with the group in a
circle. It stamps its impression on the whole workday, to my mind making
it sacred.

I think tomorrow we will carry on sketching out the story, filling
in details with each telling, letting it all evolve. I have an idea
that the boy will find out about the magic properties of the objects
from an old woman he meets and shares food with on his way to find his
sisters. This is full of classic fairy tale motifs: the giving of a gift
to get one back, and the old woman who has the gift of knowledge.

What is really fascinating me at the moment is the ability to play
with the images of the story in the improvisations, and how we are
getting to know the story though repeated re–tellings. Each time the
story is re–told, we find extra layers and add more depth to the
storytelling, more 'roundedness.' The actors are starting to know the
structure of the story now, and are discovering their own motifs, their
own ways of telling it.
This allows them to bring it alive in many different ways. I am
reminded again of the panel discussion at the World Fantasy Convention,
about how one can take basic motifs from fairy tales and re–shape and
re–jig them to tell different stories. But in order to do it well, you
need to Gnow* them, to live them, to believe in their power — not as an
intellectual exercise (though of course the intellect is a part of the
process), but in ones whole being.

Back at my flat in the evening, thinking about the play, I realise
that the way we are working with improvisations has similarities to
Trance Dances, which are a shamanic form of moving into an altered
state. I have been leading the students into the 'other place,' taking
them through Trance Dance journeys of physical and emotional
transformation into animals and archetypical beings. I was struck with
the thought that no matter how much society tries to standardize our way of thinking, archaic wisdom will always find a way of spreading and re–growing. The
earth and the tribal are within us; we are a part of them.

*To Gnow is a word coined, as far as I know, by
Ninian Kinnear–Wilson, a mask maker in Liverpool, England. The word
comes from the Greek Gnosis, and means not only to know with
intellectual knowledge, but to know with all parts of your being.